Analysis: Setting

Where It All Goes Down

The Deathbed and Beyond

"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" doesn't just have one setting – it has many. Over the course of the poem's compact nineteen lines, Thomas takes us from a lingering sunset to a bolt of lightning, from a green bay extending out from the seashore to a shooting star blazing across the sky, and finally to the top of a mountain. Of course, all of these places are metaphorical descriptions of life, death, and struggle, but we're starting to notice that they're all grand aspects of nature. This poem literally goes from the depths of the ocean, the "green bay," to the tallest peak, that "sad height," and everywhere in-between. Of course, the whole time we're traveling through nature, the speaker is really at the bedside of his dying father.